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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28231965">I'm the howling wind (let me be your friend)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/moemachina/pseuds/moemachina'>moemachina</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bad Parents, F/M, Summer Jobs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:28:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,489</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28231965</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/moemachina/pseuds/moemachina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer after high school, Ferris goes off to Europe, and Jeanie and Cameron get to know each other for the first time.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jeanie Bueller/Cameron Frye</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I'm the howling wind (let me be your friend)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyPoet/gifts">LovelyPoet</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Title from Blancmange, "Don't Tell Me" (1984). </p><p>I subscribe to the <a href="https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/logical-proof-that-ferris-bueller-and-his-sister-jeanie-are-twins">cogent argument</a> that Jeanie and Ferris are the same age (18).</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <b>JUNE</b>
  </p>
</div><p>“It figures,” Jeanie said, “that you’d get an all-expense-paid trip to Europe as a graduation present, and I’d get <em>nada</em>.”</p><p>“Says the woman who got a car for her 18th birthday,” Ferris said. “The karmic scales are pretty evenly balanced, I’d say.”</p><p>“I’m still not entirely convinced that this so-called scholarship is legit.”</p><p>Ferris shrugged. “Trust me, Jeanie, nobody was more surprised than me to learn that the Shriners, the Rotary Club, <em>and</em> the Protective Order of Elks have a joint scholarship to send one local graduate to Europe for a summer of quote-unquote ‘cultural experiences and exchanges’. But once I was in possession of that knowledge, how could I resist submitting my own name? That would just be leaving metaphorical money on the metaphorical table.”</p><p>“I think I remember seeing that application,” Jeanie said grimly. “Weren’t you supposed to have a local sponsor nominate you?”</p><p>“Perhaps,” Ferris said. “But I felt emboldened to nominate myself. Why do I need someone else to write about how great I am? When I am fully qualified and equipped to speak on that subject myself? But more importantly: does this vest say <em>debonair Parisian with a love of bold geometric shapes</em>? Or does it say <em>help I have escaped from a Berlin circus</em>?”</p><p>“Let me see. Hold it up. Woof. No. Hard pass. Where on earth did you find that thing? Also, didn’t you already pack a vest?”</p><p>“That was a sleeveless cardigan,” Ferris said. “Totally different.” Frowning, he returned the bright orange vest to his closet.</p><p>“How much clothing do you really need? And how much luggage are you planning to bring with you?” Jeanie was sitting cross-legged on the floor of Ferris’s bedroom, and from her vantage point, she could see at least four separate clothing piles on chairs, bed, and desk that Ferris had made in the last hour. The brown suitcase stretched open on his bed contained, at this point, only Ferris’ toothbrush. “I mean, I think the cowboy boots might run counter to the minimalist backpacker ethos.”</p><p>“A man likes to have choices, Jeanie.”</p><p>“Yeah? Well, you’re going to need to make those choices soon, buster. Your flight leaves at six in the morning.”</p><p>“”Pshhh,” Ferris said. “Plenty of time. Ten whole hours. Do you really think the cowboy boots are a bad bet?”</p><p>“Yes,” Jeanie said. “And you don’t have ten whole hours, unless you’re planning to skip sleeping tonight.”</p><p>“I’ll sleep on the plane,” Ferris said. With a deep sigh, he removed the cowboy boots from one pile and put them back in his closet. “How do you think the French will feel about my beret?”</p><p>“Only one way to find out,” Jeanie said. “I hope you’re also bringing along your white facepaint. I know you don’t want to miss any opportunities for miming.”</p><p>“Hmph. Admit it, Jeanie. You’re going to miss me this summer.”</p><p>Jeanie rolled her eyes. “Miss you? As if. God, it’s going to be <em>so</em> relaxing having you out of the house for three whole months.”</p><p>“Mmm. Boring. The word you’re looking for is ‘boring.’”</p><p>Jeanie snorted.</p><p>There was a little pause, and Jeanie looked up to find Ferris regarding her intently.</p><p>“Jeanie--” he started.</p><p>“No,” she said immediately.</p><p>“I haven’t even said it yet.”</p><p>“I know. But whatever it is, I’m not doing it.”</p><p>“Jeanie, I need a favor.”</p><p>“I already said no.”</p><p>“Jeanie,” Ferris said solemnly, “Listen, this is important. I need you to keep an eye on Cameron.”</p><p>“I’m absolutely not--what? Cameron? Why?”</p><p>Ferris shrugged. “I worry about him. He’s going through some stuff right now. I feel a little bad about leaving him for so long this summer.”</p><p>Jeanie made an ostentatious gagging noise.</p><p>“Come on. I just need you to check on him occasionally. It’s no big deal.”</p><p>“Why me?” Jeanie asked. “Why not ask one of your little minions? Why not ask Sloane?”</p><p>“I asked Sloane,” Ferris said. “But Sloane is Sloane, and you are you.”</p><p>“What the fuck does that mean?”</p><p>“It means that you’re responsible,” Ferris said. “And once you agree to do a thing, I know you’ll do it.”</p><p>“Fuck that noise,” Jeanie said. “I’m not babysitting Cameron this summer.”</p>
<hr/><p>Two hours later, as they both sat on Ferris’ bursting suitcase so that it would finally close and Ferris could latch it shut, Jeanie agreed to keep an eye on Cameron.</p><p>“But only if it doesn’t interfere with any of my summer plans,” she added.</p><p>She waited for Ferris to say <em>what summer plans</em> but Ferris wisely avoided taking the bait. Instead, he merely said, “Of course.”</p><p>“And I’m definitely not <em>hanging out</em> with him or anything.”</p><p>“As you wish,” Ferris said. “But you’ll be missing out. Cameron is cooler than you think.”</p><p>Jeanie slid off the top of Ferris’ suitcase. “I doubt it. Ever since elementary school, that dude has been a neurotic dweeb.” She leaned against the headboard of Ferris’ bed and hugged her knees to her chest. “If he wasn’t your loyal little lackey, marching in time to all your little dumb schemes, you’d see that too.”</p><p>“I think you overestimate my power over him,” Ferris said, straining to pull his suitcase off his bed. It hit the ground like a dropped dumbbell. “But I will acknowledge that he’s an acquired taste.”</p><p>“Whatever. But you owe me,” Jeanie said.</p><p>“Always,” Ferris said. “In gratitude, I will send you so many postcards from my Grand Tour this summer!”</p><p>“Ugh,” said Jeanie. “Please don’t.”</p>
<hr/><p>The next morning, so early that it was still dark outside her window, Jeanie briefly awoke to the sounds of her parents’ excited voices and the dog barking and Ferris slowly dragging his suitcase down the stairs: <em>thunk thunk thunk</em>.</p><p>She thought about getting up. Watching her parents anxiously fuss around Ferris. Standing in the doorway waving as they all drove to the airport.</p><p>Instead, she rolled over and went back to sleep.</p><p>Several hours later, she woke up again. The house was silent, and its emptiness seemed to press upon her from all directions.</p><p>Jeanie smiled.</p><p>As she had expected, her distracted parents had forgotten to turn off the coffee maker before they left. A half-full pot, hot and black, still sat there in the kitchen.</p><p>“Such a fire hazard,” Jeanie said, pouring herself a mug. “Could have burned the whole house down, mom and dad. Tsk, tsk.”</p><p>Holding the mug in both hands, she leaned against the kitchen counter and thought about her options for the morning. Her parents would be back home eventually, but until then, she had the house to herself. She could watch whatever she wanted on the TV in the family room. She could make cookies using every mixing bowl in the house. She could openly go through her mother’s collection of romance novels in search of all the really dirty parts.</p><p>She frowned. “These are the ambitions of a <em>child</em>,” she said to her coffee mug. “Surely I can do better than that.”</p><p>The mug did not respond.</p><p>“Maybe I should rob a bank,” she said.</p><p>The doorbell rang.</p><p>When Jeanie opened the front door, Cameron was standing there, his hair tousled and his T-shirt wrinkled, looking like a stretched-out version of Pig-Pen from the Sunday comics.</p><p>“Hey,” he said, a little awkwardly.</p><p>“Hey,” she agreed, blowing across the surface of her coffee mug.</p><p>“I just stopped by to see Ferris,” Cameron said. “To say good-bye. Before he left and everything.”</p><p>Jeanie grimaced.</p><p>“What?” Cameron asked.</p><p>“You missed him, buddy. He left already.”</p><p>Cameron swallowed incredulously. “<em>Already</em>? But--he told me his flight was this afternoon?”</p><p>“Mmm,” Jeanie said, taking a sip of coffee. “Well, it wasn’t.”</p><p>“Maybe he meant his arrival time,” Cameron said, staring off into the distance. “Maybe I misheard him.” His shoulders slumped forward. Even his hair looked sad.</p><p>For a moment, Jeanie thought longingly about an empty house and TV and raw cookie dough and heaving bosoms and shutting the door firmly in Cameron’s dejected face.</p><p>But, unfortunately, Ferris had asked her to keep an eye on Cameron, and, unfortunately, Jeanie was Jeanie.</p><p>“Do you want to come in?” she asked Cameron.</p><p>He blinked at her. “What? Where?”</p><p>“The house, genius. There’s still some coffee in the pot. And I’m going to make myself breakfast. If you want any.”</p><p>Cameron regarded her warily, as if he was trying to puzzle out the hidden trap in her invitation. “Um. Okay.”</p><p>“Okay. Come in, then,” she said. Leaving the front door open, she turned and went back to the kitchen. She did not look back to see if Cameron followed. She did not <em>care</em> if Cameron followed.</p><p>A few seconds later, she heard him gently shut the front door and follow her into the kitchen.</p><p>“I was thinking pancakes,” she told him. “How do you feel about pancakes?”</p><p>“Um,” Cameron said carefully, ducking his head slightly to pass under the frame of the kitchen doorway. “I think pancakes are good. I’m pro-pancake.”</p><p>“Okay,” Jeanie said. She flapped her hand at him. “I’m not going to go through the rigamarole of finding you the good mug and asking if you take sugar or whatever. You know where everything is in this house. Fix your own damn cup of coffee, and I’ll get the Bisquick going.”</p><p>“That’s more like it,” Cameron said, visibly relaxing. “I was starting to think you were some sort of pod-person <em>Body Snatcher</em> version of Jeanie. Or that I was having some sort of weird nightmare. Or one of us had suffered some head trauma recently.”</p><p>“What are you talking about?” Jeanie asked as she opened the refrigerator door. “Also, we don’t have much milk, so you can’t have any for your coffee.”</p><p>“Luckily,” Cameron said, “I like it black.” He had found a mug labeled GREETINGS FROM THE WINDY CITY in the cupboard. “And I just meant that making me pancakes is pretty weird for you, Jeanie. No offense.” He paused. “Unless these are pity pancakes?”</p><p>Jeanie, in the middle of cracking eggs into a big bowl, sneered at him. “You wish. Keep it straight, buddy. I’m making <em>me</em> pancakes. You’re just a lucky bystander who was in the right place at the right time. ”</p><p>“Mmm,” Cameron said. He stared down at his coffee. “So Ferris is gone.”</p><p>“Praise Jesus.” Jeanie whisked vigorously.</p><p>“I wish I had gotten a chance to say good-bye.”</p><p>“He’s not dead. He’ll be back.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Cameron said. “But it won’t be the same. As soon as he gets back, we’ll both be headed off to college. And the separation will just continue. Forever.”</p><p>“It’s not too late, you know,” Jeanie said. “You could always tell Stanford to fuck off and come join the two of us in Urbana.”</p><p>Cameron tapped his thumb against the handle of his mug. “I’ve considered it.”</p><p>Jeanie clicked on a burner. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Cameron. No. Do not transfer schools just so you can be close to my asshole brother. It would be a total waste of your time, because he’s absolutely going to fail out in his first semester. Also, the first pancake is always the worst one, so I’m giving it to you.”</p><p>“I won’t look any gift pancake in the mouth,” Cameron said. “So, ah, while Ferris is off gallivanting across Europe, what are you going to be doing this summer?”</p><p>“Working,” Jeanie said in a tone of disgust. “You look upon the most recent employee of Mister Joe’s Ice Cream Shoppe.”</p><p>“Wow,” Cameron said. “<em>Wow.</em>”</p><p>“Yeah, I know. Don’t rub it in.”</p><p>“Do they let you scoop the ice cream right away, or do you have to sweep the floor and slowly work your way up to the sacred scoop?”</p><p>“Har har har,” Jeanie said. “What are you going to be doing, wise guy? Working for your dad again?”</p><p>“No,” Cameron said slowly. “Not this summer. This summer I’m delivering pizzas for the Rossi Brothers.”</p><p>“Huh,” Jeanie said, handing him a plate with a slightly singed pancake. “I think I know that place. It’s not too far from Mister Joe’s, right?”</p><p>“That’s right,” Cameron said.</p><p>“Maybe we’ll see each other around,” Jeanie said as she poured more pancake batter into the hot pan.</p><p>“Yeah, maybe,” Cameron said. “If we run into each other, am I allowed to know you? Or do I need to avert my gaze and pretend that we’re total strangers?”</p><p>Jeanie gave him a withering look. “Just eat your damn pancake, okay? There’s some syrup in the fridge. You know where the forks are.”</p><p>“Thank you, by the way.”</p><p>“You’re welcome, by the way.”</p>
<hr/><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <b>JULY</b>
  </p>
</div><p>
  <em>Dear Bueller Family,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Greetings from jolly old England! You will be glad to hear that I’ve been drinking tea every day, just like a local! There was some sort of miscommunication about the hostel where I was supposed to stay, but I ended up talking to my cab-driver (taxis are black here!) and one thing led to another and now I’m staying in his aunt’s spare room. I’m learning so much about London society gossip from her! </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Love,<br/>
Ferris</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Jeanie’s tenure at Mister Joe’s Ice Cream Shoppe lasted less than two weeks. Some guy ordering two scoops of Rum Raisin “got fresh” with her, and at the end of their interaction, he was wearing a lot of Rum Raisin and Jeanie was fired.</p><p>“I regret nothing,” Jeanie told Cameron the afternoon it happened. “I mean, I was planning to quit anyway. It was awful. The things that grown men said to me! With their children standing right next to them!”</p><p>“I can imagine,” Cameron said dryly. They were seated in a booth at the Rossi Brothers’ Pizzeria. Cameron was waiting around for his next delivery to be ready, and Jeanie was nursing a Coke.</p><p>“So what’s next?” Cameron asked.</p><p>“I walked over to Earl’s Sandwiches next door and asked if they were hiring,” Jeanie said. “And they said I could start Monday.”</p><p>“Earl’s Sandwiches? That’s a move up in the world,” Cameron said. “Although I’m surprised you didn’t come here and ask for a job. You could have <em>dropped my name</em> and everything.”</p><p>Jeanie made a face. “I don’t love the idea of spending eight hours a day surrounded by pizza grease. Besides, isn’t this a family business? I figured that I wouldn’t have a chance, since my last name isn’t Rossi.”</p><p>“I think it is a family business,” Cameron said, “although I don’t think that there are any actual Rossi brothers. Or, if they are, they exited Italy by a pretty circuitous route. Everyone working in the kitchen seems to be from San Salvador.”</p><p>Somebody leaned out of the kitchen doors and shouted Cameron’s name.</p><p>“Looks like I got a delivery,” Cameron said apologetically as he slid out of the booth.</p><p>“Oh great,” Jeanie said. “You can give me a ride home, then.”</p><p>Cameron frowned. “What happened to your car?”</p><p>“One of the brake lights is being weird. So it’s in the shop.” She peered at him. “Can’t you take me home after your delivery?”</p><p>Cameron gave a long pause. “Sure,” he said at last, and then he went back to the kitchen to pick up the pizza boxes and get the delivery address.</p><p>The source of Cameron’s hesitancy became clear as soon as Jeanie opened the passenger-side door and clambered inside. “Jesus, Cameron. You’ve got so much junk in here. And, no offense, but it smells like old gym clothes.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Cameron said wearily.</p><p>“I-is that a pillow in your back seat? And a blanket?”</p><p>Cameron was grimly silent as he threw his car into reverse and backed out of his parking space.</p><p>“Cameron.”</p><p>Cameron sighed.</p><p>“Cameron, have you been <em>sleeping</em> in this car?”</p><p>A long pause. “Sometimes. Sometimes it’s easier than going home.”</p><p>Jeanie glared at him. “What the absolute fuck? <em>This</em> was the best solution you could devise?”</p><p>Cameron said nothing for a moment, although Jeanie could see the muscles along his jawbone clenching and unclenching. At last, he said, “I had limited options. Not everyone gets to experience the warmth and unconditional love of the Bueller household, Jeanie.”</p><p>“Pfffh,” Jeanie said. “You have <em>no idea</em>. But I don’t mean that, you asshole. Everyone knows that your parents are fucking cretins. What I’m asking is: why move into your tiny, gross car when you could just move into a real-person apartment?”</p><p>Cameron swallowed. “I’m trying.” He jerked his elbow in the direction of the pizza boxes sitting in the back seat. “I need to make some money first. And I’ve asked the guys at work if they know of any rooms for rent. They’re working on it for me. Pablo says his friend José Maria knows a guy who might be able to help me out.”</p><p>“Hmmph,” Jeanie said.</p><p>Cameron rolled his eyes. “I’m sorry if my plan doesn’t meet your standards, your highness.”</p><p>“It doesn’t,” Jeanie said, “but thank you for the apology.”</p>
<hr/><p>That evening, just when he had folded down all the seats in his car and wiggled into a semi-comfortable position and started to finally fall asleep, Cameron was wakened from the beginnings of a dream by the sound of someone knocking on his car window.</p><p>“Wmph?” he muttered, starting at the sound and slamming his head against a hard door handle. He blearily pulled himself upright and looked through the driver-side window -- only to see Jeanie Bueller glaring back at him.</p><p>“Ugh,” Cameron said.</p><p>“Open up!” Jeanie shouted, and she started rapping angrily on his window again.</p><p>“Fine, stop it, don’t break the glass, Jesus,” Cameron muttered as he leaned forward and fished around for the door’s lock and handle. After a moment, the car door swung open.</p><p>“Hey,” Jeanie said. “Get up.”</p><p>“How did find you me?”</p><p>Jeanie rolled her eyes. “It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you were probably sleeping in the parking lot of the Rossi Brothers at night, dude.” She wrinkled her nose. “How can you sleep in such a weird contorted position?”</p><p>“It’s just snug,” Cameron said plaintively.</p><p>“Uh huh. What do you do for showers?”</p><p>Cameron shrugged helplessly.</p><p>“Yeah, that would explain the <em>funk</em>,” Jeanie said. “Okay. Saddle up, cowboy. You’re coming home with me.”</p><p>“Oh no,” Cameron said.</p><p>“Oh yes,” Jeanie said.</p><p>“Did you…” Cameron took a deep breath. “Did you tell your parents about me?”</p><p>“Obviously,” Jeanie said. “They were, understandably, appalled to hear about your Little Match Girl routine.”</p><p>“Oh no,” Cameron groaned. “I can’t believe you would do that to me.”</p><p>“Cameron, what you’ve got to understand about me is that I am not a figure of mercy. I am a figure of <em>justice</em>. Anyway, if you don’t come home with me, my mom is going to be the next person to visit you, and I don’t think you want <em>that</em>.”</p><p>“No,” Cameron agreed mournfully.</p><p>“I thought so,” Jeanie said with some satisfaction.</p>
<hr/><p>Jeanie had made an impassioned case for putting Cameron in Ferris’ empty bedroom, but her parents had chosen instead to put him in the empty guestroom.</p><p>“And please, Cameron, we want you here <em>all</em> summer,” Ferris’ mother had told him, clasping his hands in her own.</p><p>“Yeah, sport, absolutely,” Ferris’ father had said. “It’s our pleasure to host you. <em>Really</em>.”</p><p>Neither of them mentioned anything about Cameron’s father. Neither of them mentioned Cameron’s car. Neither of them mentioned anything about <em>why</em> Cameron needed to stay with them <em>all</em> summer. But it was all silently and mutually understood.</p><p>“Well, that was excruciating,” Cameron said later.</p><p>“Yeah, well, my parents suck,” Jeanie said easily. She was helping him clean out his car and move his semi-clean clothing and “personal effects” into the Bueller guestroom.</p><p>“They don’t suck,” Cameron said automatically. “I mean, they’re letting me crash indefinitely at your house. They’re virtually saints.”</p><p>“No,” Jeanie said immediately. “They were weird and awkward with you. They could have made you feel welcome, but they fucked it up. As usual.”</p><p>Cameron shrugged. “I’m sure they were trying their best.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Jeanie said. “That’s what makes it maddening. They <em>were</em> trying their best. Their best just isn’t very good.”</p><p>“Your expectations are too high, Jeanie. You’d see things differently if you had grown up with <em>my</em> father.”</p><p>Jeanie smiled widely at Cameron and said, “If I had grown up with <em>your</em> father, he would be dead by now, and there’s not a jury in the nation that would be able to convict me.” She hoisted a garbage bag over her shoulder. “Come on. It’s late and I want to go to bed.”</p><p>Cameron let the subject drop -- but ten minutes later, as Jeanie was insistently checking to make sure he had the requisite number of hand-towels, she said, apropos of nothing (but clearly in response to a conversation she’d been having silently in her own head): “They’re not monsters. I mean, I get that. I’m not a <em>total</em> brat. They’re just so much <em>less</em> than they could be. And that’s hard to accept.”</p><p>It took Cameron a moment to realize she was talking about her parents.</p><p>She straightened from counting the towels folded at the foot of the bed and crossed her arms. “You probably think I’m a spoiled princess,” she said to him.</p><p>“No,” Cameron said helplessly. “I don’t think that.”</p><p>She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Anyway. Sleep tight. And if you need anything...you already know where everything is. So you can figure it out.”</p>
<hr/><p>The next morning was weird and strange, full of awkward formality from Ferris’ parents (and Cameron could not shake the habit of thinking of them as Ferris’ parents, even though they were, of course, Jeanie’s parents as well).</p><p>And then Jeanie came downstairs and criticized her mother’s chessboard scarf and rolled her eyes at her father’s reading of the newspaper headlines and mocked the paleness of Cameron’s toast -- and it was like somebody had flipped an invisible switch, and Ferris’ parents seemed to remember that Cameron had been having regular sleepovers with Ferris for more than a decade, and that he had been a regular fixture at their dining-room table for years and years, and there was nothing really new or novel about him eating breakfast with them right now. And then they loosened up, and stopped gingerly asking how he had slept last night, and things became a lot more bearable.</p><p>Cameron drove Jeanie to work that morning, since her car was back in the shop to deal with an AC issue, and he told her that he was going to talk to her parents and offer to pay some kind of rent, and she punched him in the shoulder so hard that he nearly veered off the road.</p><p>“Don’t ruin a good thing,” she said. “My parents feel so virtuous about how things have worked out. Let them be magnanimous assholes. Besides, <em>you</em> need your pizza tips more than my parents do.”</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Dear Bueller Family,</em>
</p><p><em>Bonjour from Paris! City of love and </em>fromage<em>! I’ve had some unexpected luck: my London landlady directed me to look up an old friend of hers in Paris. Unfortunately, that gentlemen died fifteen years ago, but FORTUNATELY he has an extremely charming granddaughter who has invited me to spend a week on her family’s chateau in the countryside. I’ve had to adjust my planned itinerary yet again, but I’m willing to sacrifice a few dusty museums for the sake of a chateau! </em></p><p>
  <em>Love,<br/>
Ferris</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>Jeanie’s job at Earl’s Sandwiches lasted less than a week.</p><p>“I mean the ironic thing is, they were trying to show me how to use the meat slicer <em>safely</em>,” she said over a slice of pepperoni pizza. “And then the next thing we know, Earl Jr. is <em>screaming</em>, and there’s blood everywhere.” She took another bite and thoughtfully chewed, and after she swallowed, she said, “But the silver lining is that the paramedics said we called just in time, and they think they can re-attach the thumb and everything.”</p><p>“Gross,” Cameron said.</p><p>“Yeah,” Jeanie said. “Anyway, that was the moment I knew I couldn’t keep working there. I’m not risking my fingers just to make sandwiches for jerk-wad skateboarders.”</p><p>“Wise,” Cameron said. “So what’s next?”</p><p>“I asked Delightful Doughnuts down the block if they were hiring,” Jeanie said. “I start on Monday.”</p>
<hr/><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    <b>AUGUST</b>
  </p>
</div><p>Jeanie was fired from Delightful Doughnuts after two days.</p><p>“I don’t want to talk about it,” she told Cameron in their booth at Rossi Brothers.</p><p>“It probably wasn’t a good fit,” Cameron said.</p><p>“Yeah,” Jeanie said darkly. “You could say that.”</p><p>“So what food business are you going to enter next?”</p><p>“None. I’m done with food service. Do you know that antiques place down the street?”</p><p>Cameron paused. “The place that is just called ANTIQUES for all anyone knows? The place that no one is ever inside? The place that we think is probably a front for drugs or the mafia or maybe both?”</p><p>“The very same,” Jeanie said. “I start tomorrow.”</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Dear Bueller Family,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>First, I am okay!!! Second, if you are contacted by Interpol in the near future, please remind them that the Madrid police dropped all charges! Thirdly, I have learned my lesson about accepting strange suitcases from strange men! Fourth sorry am at post office and have to mail this postcard now lots of love longer letter later. FERRIS</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>To the surprise of everyone, Jeanie flourished in the antiques business.</p><p>“I like my boss,” Jeanie told Cameron. It was the morning, and he was driving her to work, which had become the usual pattern, even though Jeanie’s car was all fixed and back from the mechanic.</p><p>(If anyone had asked Cameron about it, he would have said that it just made sense, after all, since he also needed to go to work in the same general area, and he might as well give Jeanie a ride while he was at it. But nobody had asked Cameron about it.)</p><p>“He’s really no-nonsense,” Jeanie said. “He says exactly what he thinks. Sometimes rich people come into the shop and try to lowball him on some old table or porcelain shepherdess, and he just immediately calls them on their bullshit. He has no fear.”</p><p>Cameron nodded.</p><p>“He said, once I finish with all the filing, he’ll let me start helping him in the front of the store,” Jeanie said. “He said that, if I want, I can come back next summer and work for him again.”</p><p>Cameron nodded again.</p><p>“I think he was in prison for a while, but he won’t tell me why. But I’m gonna find out.”</p><p>Cameron, still nodding, hit his turn signal and checked over his shoulder before changing lanes.</p><p>“He asked me yesterday if you were my boyfriend,” Jeanie said in the same level tone.</p><p>Cameron froze.</p><p>“I said I didn’t have time for boyfriends,” Jeanie said.</p><p>And after that, neither of them said anything for the rest of the car ride.</p>
<hr/><p>Cameron did not spend a lot of time thinking about Jeanie’s tough, no-nonsense boss at the drug-front ANTIQUES place. And since Cameron did not spend a lot of time thinking about him, he was -- of course -- not <em>jealous</em> of Jeanie’s ex-felon boss, despite the rapturous terms with which Jeanie often described him.</p><p>But for a man who had spent zero time thinking about this <em>other</em> man, Cameron still felt considerable surprise the first time he met him, on a night when he stopped by to pick up Jeanie after work.</p><p>They were both on the sidewalk talking when Cameron pulled up: Jeanie and a man who appeared to be about seventy years old. He had no hair and thick coke-bottle glasses.</p><p>“Hey, Cameron!” Jeanie shouted. “Hold on, I forgot my bag.” She sprinted back into the darkened store.</p><p>Cameron nodded politely at the old man -- who scowled deeply at him and waddled up to his driver-side window.</p><p>“Um,” Cameron said, rolling down the window. “Hello.”</p><p>“You must be Jeanie’s young man,” the old man rasped.</p><p>“Well,” Cameron started, and then he stopped speaking, because the old man’s hand had snaked into the car and seized Cameron’s shoulder with a strength that could grind bones.</p><p>“I hope,” he said, “that you are treating Jeanie like the <em>queen</em> she is.”</p><p>“Of course,” squeaked Cameron. “Jeanie wouldn’t stand for anything less!”</p><p>“That’s true,” the old man said, releasing him. “That’s very true.”</p><p>And then Jeanie was jogging up to the passenger-side door and opening it. “See you tomorrow, Saul!”</p><p>“See you tomorrow, Jeanie,” said the old man, stepping back on the sidewalk and continuing to glare at Cameron with an intensity that did not lessen even as Cameron drove away.</p><p>“That was my boss, Saul,” Jeanie said, beaming. “Isn’t he <em>terrifying</em>?”</p><p>“Yes,” Cameron agreed fervently.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Dear Bueller Family,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Greetings from Rome! I write with some exciting news! I know I was supposed to be on the 7:16 pm flight on August 15th, but there’s been a slight change of plans on my end! Long story short, I’ve met a perfectly delightful contessa and she’s invited me to an unexpected sojourn to Crete, and you know how I’ve always wanted to see Crete! Anyway, I talked to the people at the airline, and then the contessa talked to the people at the airline, and it’s all worked out, but I will be coming home a little later than planned. More details to follow! </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Love,<br/>
Ferris</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>“Yo, Cameron.”</p><p>Cameron, sitting cross-legged on his bed, looked up to see Jeanie standing in the open doorway of the Buellers’ guestroom. She was holding a sheaf of envelopes, and she handed one to him. “You got some mail.”</p><p>“Huh,” Cameron said, taking it. And then he looked at the front of it -- scrawled with NOT AT THIS ADDRESS in thick red letters and then, in a different, delicate hand beneath, <em>please forward to</em> and the Buellers’ home address -- and sighed. “Oh.”</p><p>“So they know where you are,” Jeanie said.</p><p>“I think they put two and two together when I completely stopped coming home,” Cameron said dryly.</p><p>“And they’ve accepted it.”</p><p>Cameron indicated the front of the envelope. “This looks like a kind of acceptance, yes.”</p><p>“It’s too bad you’re already eighteen years old,” Jeanie said. “You’ve been denied the opportunity to formally emancipate yourself from your parents in the courts.”</p><p>“It’s a shame.”</p><p>A pause.</p><p>“That letter is from Stanford,” Jeanie said.</p><p>“Mmm hmm,” Cameron said, making no effort to open it.</p><p>“Don’t you want to know what it says?”</p><p>“I think I know what it says.”</p><p>“Cameron. You’re killing me. What does it say?”</p><p>Cameron hesitated. “Well. I think it probably says that my petition to defer admission to Stanford for a year has been granted.”</p><p>Jeanie stared at him.</p><p>Then, moving slowly and deliberately, she closed the door behind her.</p><p>Cameron instinctively closed his eyes.</p><p>When he opened them again, she was sitting on the edge of his bed and staring at him expressionlessly.</p><p>“Cameron,” she said flatly. “Why are you deferring admission to Stanford?”</p><p>“Well. I can’t...really...pay for it right now.” He indicated the angry red letters on the front of the envelope. “My father...well, my financial situation has changed since I applied. Quite a lot. And the intended source of my tuition payments is no longer willing to pay any tuition on my behalf.”</p><p>“That fucking asshole,” Jeanie breathed. “Jesus. Okay. I’m sure Stanford has, like, financial aid. And loans. And stuff.”</p><p>“Sure,” Cameron shrugged. “And I’m sure I’m going to need a lot of it when I go. But I just thought...it makes sense for me to wait, you know? Make some money. Think about what I really want to do with my life.”</p><p>“For a year? While you deliver pizzas for the Rossi Brothers?”</p><p>“I kind of like it,” Cameron said. “There are worse ways to spend a year, I think.”</p><p>Jeanie had gone very pale, and her eyes had gone very wide, and for a moment, Cameron thought she was going to hit him.</p><p>Instead, she silently stood up and left his room. Cameron heard her going up the stairs, and then the sound of her bedroom door shutting.</p>
<hr/><p>Jeanie refused to come down to dinner, and instead Cameron and Ferris’ parents ate spaghetti and meatballs without her. It was awkward, in the way that Cameron always found these family meals with the Buellers awkward, but it was a familiar kind of awkward, and for the first time, Cameron realized that he was going to miss these weird family meals with his not-family.</p><p>“I finally found an apartment,” he told them. “Some guys at work knew another guy who was looking to sublease his place.”</p><p>Ferris’ parents protested, and even though they were clearly relieved that they would soon be freed from their sustained houseguest, they also seemed genuinely regretful that Cameron would be leaving them.</p><p>And Cameron thought, <em>Aw. They’re trying their best.</em></p>
<hr/><p>After dinner, Ferris’ parents settled into the family room to watch Johnny Carson, and Cameron went upstairs and knocked on Jeanie’s door.</p><p>There was a long, ominous silence. Then: “Come in.”</p><p>Cameron went in.</p><p>Jeanie was lying on her bed and staring at her ceiling. There was the shiny trace of tears on her cheeks.</p><p>Cameron closed her door and sat on the floor next to her bed. Her bedspread, he noticed, was decorated with images of lilies.</p><p>“I put a bowl of noodles and meatballs in the fridge for you,” he said.</p><p>“Okay,” Jeanie said dully.</p><p>“Do you know,” Cameron said, “what my first memory of you and Ferris is?”</p><p>A pause. “What?”</p><p>“I think it was some kid’s birthday party,” Cameron said, leaning his head against the side of the bed. “Maybe Jeremy White? Anyway, there was a piñata, right? In the shape of a little blue donkey. And they brought us all outside to take a whack at it. And you took one look at that little blue paper-mache donkey swinging from that tree branch, and you went <em>ballistic</em>. Like, total Wrath of God stuff. You were so angry that we were going to hurt this poor defenseless blue piñata-creature, and all the adults were freaking out, and all the other kids were totally confused and alarmed. And I just remember thinking <em>I have never heard anyone scream this loudly before</em>.”</p><p>“And then Ferris stole the piñata,” Jeanie whispered.</p><p>“And then Ferris stole the piñata,” Cameron repeated. “I had never seen anyone jump that high, and then he had it under one arm, and he just ran, and then nobody could find him or the piñata.”</p><p>“Jeremy’s mom was so pissed,” Jeanie said. “Like, I think all the neighborhood moms banned Ferris from all birthday parties for, like, two years afterwards.”</p><p>“What did he do with the piñata, after all that?”</p><p>“It lived in his closet for a while,” Jeanie said. “And then it got ants, and my mom discovered it and made us throw it away.” There was a rustle of movement, and then her face appeared on the edge of the bed. She regarded Cameron solemnly. “I guess that sums up me and Ferris. A drama queen and a kleptomaniac.”</p><p>Cameron laughed. “Hardly. But yes, in a way. You’re both pretty similar. You’re both too empathetic. You couldn’t bear to see that piñata in pain, and Ferris couldn’t bear to see you in pain.”</p><p>“Hmmph,” Jeanie said. “I don’t know about that.”</p><p>Cameron looked up at her. “Yeah, well. You’ve been up here for two hours being unspeakably, incoherently furious at the world on my behalf. I think I rest my case, your honor.”</p><p>Jeanie’s mouth thinned. “It’s not fair, Cameron. I can't stand how unfair it is."</p><p>"I know," Cameron said gently. "I know you want to fix it for me. But this is all just stuff that...can't be fixed, I think. It just has to be survived. But thank you for being so angry on my behalf. I...appreciate that."</p><p>"Why aren't you angrier?"</p><p>Cameron gave a helpless shrug. "I have gotten angry about it. But I don't get angry like you and Ferris get angry about stuff, Jeanie. Anger doesn't give me super-powers. When you get angry, you slice through Gordian knots. When I get angry, I can't get out of bed in the morning."</p><p>Jeanie stared at him. "It's just so unfair," she said through gritted teeth.</p><p>“Life isn’t fair--” Cameron started to say, and then Jeanie pushed herself up in one motion and whipped a pillow at his head.</p><p>“Hey,” he protested, and then another pillow hit him in the face, and then Jeanie fell off the bed onto him.</p><p>They rolled together across the carpet. It started with Jeanie hitting him, her hands balled up into fists that she drummed against his shoulders and chest, while Cameron tried to fend off her blows. But somewhere in the middle, something changed, and Jeanie was straddling him, and her hands were in his hair, and her mouth was on his mouth, and Cameron realized, with an electrifying shudder, that he was making out with Jeanie Bueller.</p><p>After a moment, Jeanie pulled her head back, her hair wild, her lips swollen. “God damn it. This is so fucking inconvenient, Cameron.”</p><p>Then she went back to kissing him.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <em>Dear Bueller Family,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Yes, you’ve read that postmark correctly. I write to you from Tokyo! Why am I here? It’s a very long story! One better told in person, I suspect. So I will not attempt to write it all down in this little square on the back of this little postcard. See you all soon!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Love,<br/>
Ferris</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>“Only Ferris Bueller would change his arrival ticket three different times.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Cameron said. “That’s probably true.”</p><p>“This is the last time,” Jeanie said, gripping the steering wheel. “I mean it.”</p><p>They were parked just outside the door marked ARRIVALS. A man in a little hat had tried to get them to move on, but Jeanie had chewed him out so ferociously that he had gone white and immediately given up, and now, whenever he walked past on his regular circuit, he refused to make eye-contact with them.</p><p>“If Ferris doesn’t walk through those doors today, that’s it,” Jeanie said. “I’m not coming out to the airport a fourth time.”</p><p>“Nor should you,” Cameron said.</p><p>“There are limits to my sisterly devotion.”</p><p>“Everyone knows it.”</p><p>“I’m not afraid to be a total bitch.”</p><p>“One of your finest qualities.”</p><p>“Stop making fun of me, Cameron.”</p><p>“Yes, ma’am,” Cameron said, and he leaned over to kiss her.</p><p>There was a startled exclamation, and they both looked up to find Ferris standing there, looking through the windshield with an expression of horror.</p><p>“What has <em>happened</em> in my <em>absence</em>?” they heard him splutter.</p><p>“So much! So much, Ferris Bueller!” Cameron shouted at him, and Jeanie started to laugh, which made Cameron laugh, and it took several moments for them to calm down long enough to unlock the doors and let Ferris in.</p>
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